Thursday, 28 July 2016

Cyclops SLR Lens Spy Web Cam

Whilst toying with the idea of designing a cheap powerful USB microscope, I managed to score a Fuji 80-200mm Zoom/ macro SLR lens for £1 on eBay! Pair this, with yet another cheap score of five Logitech C270 720P webcams for £8.50 and you have a recipe for meddling...

Concept Renders with table/tripod mount

Although the Hanimex Fuji lens has automatic zoom, all the features could be adjusted manually, Shutter, Macro and Zoom

Dealing with the Fuji Mount

Measuring the odd Fuji Screw Hole Spacing!

Designing the mounting plate

Prototype assembly

Discarding the old Fuji mount...

The lens was originally sold as a Canon mount yet, when the item arrived it was clearly not! After some research, it appeared to be a Fuji AX mount? I did not want to spend the time making an adaptor for a Fuji lens, so I decided to ditch the mounting plate and fix the stand directly.

Main spacer...

With the Fuji mount removed, a spacer had to be made.

Outer spacer...

Circle cutters are handy tools!

Test fit...

Longer machine screws had to be used to fix the new hardware to the lens.

Making the universal web cam mount

I puzzled over the mounting for the C270 webcam for quite some time when, it occurred to me, a bottle neck and screw top would give a convenient way to mount and adjust the webcam.
A few tries later, I settled on using an antifreeze bottle. The plastic at the top of the bottle was quite wide with a good thickness.

Some trimming later, I had a press fit into the new lens mount system.

TIP: To block all light and reflections the inside of the screw neck needs to be painted matt black.

A nice press fit...

Disassembled C270 webcam

The standard lens is removed to reveal the 2/3rd's CCD sensor.

TIP: If you are not happy with your webcams focal point, you can adjust by rotating the built in lens, screwing it in or out, till you are fully in focus at your desired seating position.

Future modifications may include...

Sliding tripod mount to adjust for the centre of gravity of the large lens

1080P webcam.
Whilst the Logitech C270 manages 30 FPS at 720P in good light, its' image quality is quite soft.
The Logitech C920 1080P @ 30fps has hardware compression built in to compensate the limited bandwidth of USB2. Don't be fooled by its specs' which state USB3 ready!